


the city will be earth in a short while

by weird_bird (2weird4)



Category: X-Men (Original Timeline Movies)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-02
Updated: 2017-09-02
Packaged: 2018-12-23 01:45:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11979495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/2weird4/pseuds/weird_bird
Summary: Towel in hand, Caliban dries the dripping from Logan's skin before he lifts his hands in his own, thumbs smoothing over where his claws come out, sites of perpetual violence, signs of a forever foreigner in his own body, in his own world.





	the city will be earth in a short while

**Author's Note:**

> title from ["lighthouse"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfLJ4KB3mjs) by the hush sound.

Onion in butter. Starchy scent of cooking rice. Logan’s nostrils flare as he tromps into their hovel filled with smells like home. “Just got started on dinner, huh.”

“I slave over a hot stove all day and this is the thanks I get?” Caliban sounds parched-dry. “Come have a look before you complain.”

Logan pulls at his tie with tired fingers as he makes his reluctant way over. Peering into the pot, he jerks his head back. “What is this shit?”

“I preferred your previous gratitude.” He stops stirring the chicken broth and crosses his long arms over his chest. His too-loose shirt shrinks him down shadow-thin. “Can’t be spotted dick all the time, can it.”

Marie, pushing back her white streak from her face. Young hands stirring the pot as she explained the recipe to Logan for the third time, sweet and slow. Laughter in wiser eyes as she draped a towel over his hands before she pulled the pan out of the oven, like a hot baking dish was the worst thing Logan ever held in his hands. She called it rice dressing, said once upon another lifetime she had family in Louisiana who made it better than her, but she could throw it together all right. It was fatty and too salty. Savory, satisfying.

Logan’s lived off biscuits with mealworms in them, true, but he’s also had good food, the certified kind. But something warm cooked with love. That’s something else.

Shoulders balled up now, Caliban gives the pot a tentative swirl. “Charles told me the recipe.”

“What, have you not been giving him his meds?” Logan barely holds in a snarl. “He’s been poking around in our heads? Damn it, Caliban--”

“I think that’s the most words you’ve spoken to me in a month.” Caliban gestures with his chin. “Sit down.”

Jaw working, Logan looks away for a long moment before his eyes stray back to Caliban.

“Sit down.” Sighing, he sets down his spatula. Eyes very large and very clear, he says, quiet, “You forget he knows you.”

For a moment, Logan can’t say anything to that. Then he huffs a not-laugh. “Can you blame me?”

“That would take more energy than I have.” When he stumps over to Logan, he brings the pot, folding the rice and chicken together before he serves him a plateful. “Be back. Taking some to Charles.”

Logan pushes it around on his plate with his fork before he surrenders to the rumble of his stomach and takes a bite. It’s hard to swallow past the lump in his throat.

Without invitation, Caliban collapses into the rickety chair opposite him.

Logan asked him to stay. Caliban did. Everyone else is gone. Caliban stayed.

Forcing his sleeves up past his wrists, Caliban pulls laborious mouthfuls of dinner up to his mouth. They do not speak, their chewing the only audible sound under the wind whistling across arid lands outside.

“Listen, Caliban, I--” Food turning to ash in his mouth, Logan sets down his fork. He eats maybe once a day now, doesn’t clear through platters like he did, and his stomach rebels against even that. Once he wouldn’t waste food, too used to going without, but he’s used to worse now. “You got dinner, I’ll get the dishes.” 

A tight smile on pale lips. “I would expect nothing less.” Caliban passes him his own half-finished plate.

Logan scrapes off the dishes and rinses them slowly, suds clinging to the hair on his arms. His brain blurs with exhaustion, and his hand stops circling the plate with a sponge.

“Is everything all right?” Caliban comes up to his elbow, and when he reaches to touch him, Logan grabs his wrist with a soapy hand. Freezing, Caliban stares at him. Waiting. He’s good at waiting.

“What do you sense?” Periodically, Logan will ask him this, in moments where he can bear what lurks in Caliban’s eyes. 

“Now that the professor is medicated again?” His lips pinch. “Just you.”

Logan sets down the sponge, every part of him so heavy he could fall through the floor and never rise again. It’s not a bad day. But there are no good days anymore. “We’re the only ones left.”

Caliban’s long fingers vine around the feeble muscle below Logan’s elbow. “We are,” he says, a rattling breath through his nose, “the only ones in the world.”

A shudder scurries down Logan’s spine. Swaying close, his beard sandpapers his smooth white cheek. His dry mouth catches just the arrow of his lip--

Immediately, Caliban rears back, fists pushing back Logan’s arms. “Logan.” Plea-admonishment. “What is this?”

Logan drops his head away, breathing out. “Forget it.”

Then Caliban lifts a hand to his cheek to turn his face front. “And then what? Out here, we have nothing but memories.” His voice thins out, and he swallows. 

His eyes travel between Caliban’s. He grabs the dishtowel, backs off.

Caliban follows. Towel in hand, he dries the dripping from his skin before he lifts his hands in his own, thumbs smoothing over where his claws come out, sites of perpetual violence, signs of a forever foreigner in his own body, in his own world. 

Face close, Logan dares again to catch his kiss.

“This would have never happened, before.” Pale eyes shadow. “You wouldn’t have looked at me twice if we weren’t--if it wasn’t just us. If you had any other choice, it wouldn’t be me.” Logan shakes his head minutely, gravely, but it isn’t cause enough for Caliban to stop. “You don’t want this. Me. Not really. In an ideal world--”

When Logan’s eyes crinkle, Caliban goes quiet. Bit by bit, his arms come around him. In his arms, Logan loosens as though at the first touch of water. Against his face, hot with checked tears, Caliban’s cool shoulder is the only oasis. “I’ve never lived in an ideal world.”


End file.
